


eat your heart out, ryan bergara

by Casylum



Series: Borkage 2018 [4]
Category: Fifty Shades of Grey - All Media Types, Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 17:08:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14406639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Casylum/pseuds/Casylum
Summary: The hauntings start in middle school, which honestly, Thaïss Grey thinks, years after the fact, is the best and the worst time to discover that not only are ghosts real, something about you makes them want to hang around.





	eat your heart out, ryan bergara

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Morbane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane/gifts).



[01]

The hauntings start in middle school, which honestly, Thaïss Grey thinks, years after the fact, is the best and the worst time to discover that not only are ghosts real (eat your heart out, Ryan Bergara), something about you makes them want to hang around.

There's something about the cocktail of hormones and emotions that makes "I have ghost friends" a cool thing, especially since the crushing awkwardness and willingness to try anything once for the sake of second-hand admiration that colored her high school years is still a ways away.

But still.

~~~

[22]

Caro Lee is Homecoming Queen, Captain of the soccer team, and drives a white four-door sedan that a drunk wrapped around a tree the day before graduation.

"I don't know," Thaïss says, looking at the explosion of tight curls haloing out from her scalp. "Are you sure I shouldn't straighten it? Emily—Emily McKinley, not Emily Strauss—Emily says Brandon likes girls with long hair."

Caro Lee snaps her gum from where she's sitting cross-legged on Thaïss' bed, dressed in spiritwear at least a decade out of date, blood dripping slowly and constantly from the head wound that killed her. "Brandon's a fucking idiot if that's the case, you can take that to the bank and cash it."

She gets up, wanders over to where Thaïss is standing, threadbare sneakers silent against the wood floor. "Leave it be, honey, and if he doesn't like it—" Caro Lee leans in, skin suddenly stretched tight and thin across her skull, hair lank and rotting "—Boo, he's gone."

~~~

[37]

Thaïss is twenty-two and sobbing in the upper stacks of the university library.

“I just don't get it,” she whisper-wails, “of all the things that have come back, why not _this_?”

Brad—short for Bradley, short for Bradley Richard Hughes IV—pats her awkwardly on the back.

“It’s not an exact science,” he says, apologetically, voice burbling wetly in his ruined throat. “Why do any of us come back, really? Have you asked?”

“No,” Thaïss mumbles, swiping at her eyes, “it seemed impolite.”

“Well,” Brad says, water leaking out of the side of his mouth, rumbling in his lungs, “it might just be that, but it’s a good thing to consider. If it helps, though, I’ve never seen any animals, no flattened squirrels or broken-necked pigeons, just people.

“I think,” he continues, as Thaïss looks up at him, “that maybe we’re the only ones worried about being left behind.”

The floor of the library is awash with a spectral flood.

~~~

[50]

“Will you,” Thaïss says, shivering, her thin pajamas doing nothing to shield her from the wind, “shut the hell up.”

The woman standing at the edge of the roof turns to face her, the pale blue light of the sign across the street shining through the gaping hole in her abdomen. “You...You can see me?”

Thaïss nods tiredly. “Hear you, too. Which is why,” she repeats, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t screech non-stop throughout all hours of the night.”

“I’m sorry,” the woman says, looking chagrined. “I, uh, I thought I was just, you know. Shouting into the void. Coming to terms with—” she waves vaguely “—all this.”

“As one does.” Thaïss understands, she really does. This woman isn’t her first ghost, or her fifth, tenth, or twentieth. They’re all dead but not gone, and they’re all a bit confused by the last part. It’s just that Thaïss is coming off of an eighteen hour rotation, is dead fucking tired, and just...wants a nap. One ghost-free nap. Or twelve.

“I’m Sadie,” says the ghost, suddenly three feet away instead of across the roof.

“Thaïss.” She turns, heads back inside. “Come on, you might as well come down with me, we’ll get you sorted.”

**Author's Note:**

> have a treat!


End file.
